


it's time for a new empire

by GuiltyPleasuresAndDeadlySins



Category: 6 Underground (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Gen, Zombies, non-standard zombie apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:14:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuiltyPleasuresAndDeadlySins/pseuds/GuiltyPleasuresAndDeadlySins
Summary: Everyone likes to think they have a plan for when the world ends. Everyone likes to think that if the dead start walking they'll be the one to survive. But truth is, most people? They're not going to make it. The every day person on the street can't run fast enough, or long enough, to escape the inevitability of a virus that turns people into flesh-eating monsters. It takes more than just will to survive. Although I'm not going to lie: that helps.(aka: the zombie apocalypse no-one asked for, but I needed, so I wrote it.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	it's time for a new empire

Everyone likes to think they have a plan for when the world ends. Everyone likes to think that if the dead start walking they'll be the one to survive. But truth is, most people? They're not going to make it. The every day person on the street can't run fast enough, or long enough, to escape the inevitability of a virus that turns people into flesh-eating monsters. It takes more than just will to survive. Although I'm not going to lie: that helps.

A will to survive, and the right people to help you do it. Which is why, when the world ended and the dead started walking, I started collecting.

You can call me One. Because really, once the world's ended, names don't really have meaning any more. And more to the point, connecting to people is even more dangerous. You never know when you'll need to be able to shoot them in the head, and I'd seen people hesitate. You couldn't afford that, not when the person you couldn't shoot might decide you were the next thing on the menu.

Two and Three were the first I found. I never asked how they'd come to be surviving together, cutting a violent swathe through the new world. An ex-spy and a hitman made strange bedfellows, but they seemed to make it work. They took to their numbers with surprising ease, although Three griped about not being Two on occasions. 

But it was, technically, Two I had first met. Or saw. It really was more a saw. I hate to use a cliche about our eyes meeting across a crowded room, but here we are. Except the room was more of a street, and the crowd was a little more dead than romantics would like. I saw enough of what she was capable of in the minute I had eyes on her to know I wanted her on my side. Unfortunately, the dead had other ideas on me extending an invitation to her.

But luck was on my side and a second chance presented itself. Although this time, she wasn't alone, she had Three with her. And they had a problem, and no easy way out of it. But it did give me a chance to decide I wanted Three as well. 

"Need a hand?" I called from my…relatively safe perch on a fire escape.

Sure the undead _could_ get to me, but it would take them time to break through the doors and I had three exits planned.

Somewhat predictably, they were wary, and Three cussed me out rather inventively. At least, I think that's what he was doing. Languages: not my strong suit. 

"Look, I'm just saying. Easier to survive with more than two."

They don’t exactly look like they’re considering it, instead continuing on their own way. Which was when things went bad. Or, from my perspective, good.

See here’s the thing: ninety-five percent of people who got whatever the fuck virus this was? They died and reanimated as walking corpses with no real intelligence left, and a shambling walk that you could outrun.

The other five percent? Became something _else_. Mutated into creatures that were a magnitude more dangerous than the zombies. They still had intelligence, and they weren't shambling. They could run, with stutter-start unnatural movements and half-spoken words stuck on repeat from mouths that weren't quite human any more. They were harder to kill too, more resilient to damage. You could be pretty sure putting a bullet in a zombie's head would put it down. You couldn't be certain about that with a mutation. It might kill it, it might just slow it down, it might not even do that. But if it was either of the latter two, you would just have made it angry.

And when they appeared? You _ran_. Didn’t matter how much of a lead you thought you had, didn’t matter how much you thought you had the high ground or the advantage, if a mutation turned up, you got the hell out of dodge before it set its sights on you.

Which rather forced my two would-be-recruits hands, when not one, but _two_ mutations appeared at the end of the street. One a huge, monstrous thing, bigger than any human, walking on four limbs, with a wolf like muzzle, and tiny eyes, the other pixie-ish by comparison, almost humanoid, except for the fact that in place of hands it had long, insectoid pincers, along with huge wide eyes, and no visible mouth. The larger one tilted its head up, sniffing hungrily at the air.

They stared for a moment, and then their eyes darted to me.

“You’ve got a way out?” Three demanded.

“Yup,” I confirmed with a nod. “Building has basement access to an old access tunnel. Big enough to drive a car through.”

They hesitated, until the second mutation scanned the street, eyes alighting on them, and widening _further_. Then it opened its mouth and let out a sound that wasn’t even human anymore, and not even remotely understandable.

“You have a car?” Two asked, but they weren’t hesitating now, scrambling towards my fire escape, and the ladder I’d kicked loose for them.

“Yes.”

“I’m driving,” Three stated, and it wasn’t a request.

I wasn’t entirely down for that, but I wasn’t actually going to argue with them. Not when I was getting what I wanted. The pixie-mutation was already moving towards them, with a gait that couldn’t be called a run, pincers clicking eagerly.

“Quick, quick,” I said. Just because I needed a team, didn’t mean I was going to wait for them if the situation became unrecoverable.

Our luck held, and we hauled the ladder back up, Two still climbing it, in time for the pixie-mutation to collide with the wall underneath us, shrieking its anger. And the monstrous-mutation was lumbering after it, not as quick, but picking up a lot more momentum.

It all gets a little hectic after that, and all in all, I couldn’t actually tell you _how_ we got out of it. But we did. And Two and Three could see the advantage of having more than just the two of them.

And so we were three.


End file.
